The Loveumentary Project Sets Out to Discover the Truth About Love

Two friends from disparate backgrounds came to the same conclusion about love: the story being told about love and commitment isn’t really working. So they teamed up to travel across American to uncover and share some of the greatest love stories never told.

Unfortunately the way we see love is heavily shaped by what’s portrayed in the media. On one hand there’s the over-romanticised perspective based on movie magic conditioning. On the other hand we have the dire perspective based on celebrity culture and the high divorce rate.

According to Melissa Kong, journalist and co-host of The Loveumentary, neither extreme is the reality. After meeting Nate Bagley through a mutual friend, the two decided to team up and travel the US to uncover and share some of the greatest love stories never told.

“There’s a bit of a polarization of love,” says Kong. “And there are millions of couples around the country who have a very different experience of what it means to have a loving relationship and what the benefits of being committed to somebody really are.”

The partnership between Kong and Bagley seems rather unlikely. She’s an only child, raised by a single mother in New York City. He was raise in a big Mormon family in Utah. Yet, somehow they both came to the same conclusion: the story being told about love and commitment isn’t really working.

The duo started their journey in Utah and are now working their way up the Pacific Coast. After only 40 interviews though, Kong already sees a few patterns emerging: A different perspective for commitment, learning to love yourself and that in a successful long term relationship, men really do value the happiness of their wives above their own.

“In almost every interview we hear the men say some variation of ‘as long as my wife is happy, I’m happy,’” Kong says, adding that experts agree. In fact, she says the experts say if a woman is given space to grow and flourish, her husband will feel successful and be happier overall as well.

Kong says there’s also a huge misconception in popular culture that the person you marry is supposed to make you happy. What she’s discovered is that people who are more self actualized are able to maintain healthier long-term relationships.

“Marriage is for growth, not happiness,” Kong says. “The person you’re married to helps you become a better person over time.”

For Kong, the ultimate lesson from the Loveumentary so far seems to fly in the face of popular beliefs about love and marriage. In the end, in order to love someone else you have to first learn how to love yourself.